I GOT SCAMMED FOR $80 -- for TIRES -- by a couple having a BABY in only 3 days!! -- Such a weird story!
It's true! I bought 4 used tires for $80 and it turned out, it was a big scam. She was even PREGNANT. What the heck??
When someone gets scammed, and talks about it publicly, I've always enjoyed that... that's how we stop scams from spreading. In addition, we all could learn something so it doesn't happen to us.
Recently, I bought four used tires in terrific condition. I found the seller on craigslist. I went to his home and his wife stepped outside, she was very pregnant.
"My due date is in 3 days" from now, she said.
"We're moving, because the owner of the house sold it on us. We have to get out quick" he said.
I took a quick look at the size and dimensions of the tires he was selling. They were in fantastic shape.
"I only want $80 for the four of them. I gotta sell off all this stuff quick", he stated.
Here's the stack of tires:
So I looked closer at the tread depth.. They look nice!! Almost BRAND NEW!!
"$80 for all four? I'll take them. Wish you the best for you and the baby coming. Hope everything works out", I said.
I loaded them all up, got them home. It was late at night. Next morning, I went to go look at them.
OH NO! I WAS SCAMMED! The tire bead on these are all chewed up! They're REJECTS from a professional tire shop! That's why the treads are so nice... they were never used!
I tried getting ahold of the guy, and he's not answering my calls. I messaged him, no response.
He knew what he did.
My first reaction is.. well I guess that's how this game goes... what am I suppose to do? Sell them to someone else the same way to get my money back?
NO!!
I'm going to scrap these tires where they belong, so no one else gets scammed ever again.
Then I realized, this was just a young couple, about to have a baby. They probably needed that $80 more than I do...
Then I thought of steemit. This would make a great story, because it has these elements:
- It's a true story
- It's educational
- It's interesting and different
- It may help someone some day
- There's a chance that I may not be out the full $80 if this post gets upvotes.
So even though I did get scammed, and I lost $80, maybe some good can come out of this in the end.
The lessons I learned:
- If it is too good to be true, it probably is (this is about the 10th time in my life I had to be reminded of this lesson. When will I learn??)
- Buying used tires? Don't just look at sizes, make, model, and tread depth. Pay attention to the BEAD where it mounts the rim!
- Even if you have pretty good karma for doing good deads, maybe something like this happens to you, because that young couple really did need $80, and you're not the type of guy to make their life a living hell over it.
- I'm the type of guy who will break the chain and not scam someone else. I'll bring these tires where they belong...to the recycle plant.
Life is strange. I, like almost any of us, can get scammed "just like that"....
With steemit though, if anything, I could share this story.. and hopefully it helps someone avoid this happening to them. :)
Today @intelliguy became @stupidguy -- really kicking myself. :)
that's obnoxious, nice job finding a positive spin!
Yes... when life deals you lemons, you make lemonade right? LOL
Nothing feels worse than having one get over on you. But in the end, it's $80. Hopefully you're in a position where $80 is a small blip.
That's why I love reading your posts. It always got some twist in between or at the end.
Firstly today you were "oh no shit why did it happen to me, screw him" and we're kinda supporting on punishing him.
But then again you brought a positive spin of how much they needed the $80 and brought many positive vibe to us. Wow.
Glad that you found positiveness here and made a great story.
I'm like that.. I don't know why I'm like that.. I'm just like that.. grin
...BUT... it's people like you who comment, that validate that I might be on the right track, and for that, I'm very thankful. Thank you so much @mother98
Your welcome boss. You post great stuff so we love that. Keep doing what you're doing and many people like will be in right track :)
Thanks for NOT selling them on to someone else. Karma and the motor gods thank you. Upvoted. You win again Craigslist! Damn you!
Ha Ha.. thanks for the laugh. :) I needed it.
I feel bad your out not only $80 but also the tires you apparently had plans for. But you were very kind to not pursue it further. They obviously needed the money. Kudos to you.
Good to hear you're breaking the chain.
It's best to jut consider your experience as making a gift to a couple in need. It won't 'hurt' as much that way.
Hoping you'll get a good payout for this post to help make up for it.
It's a way of turning a bad situation into a good situation. That's how we overcome the obstacles of life. In the end... I'm not angry... and I like that... :)
Good to hear. All the best to you.
Everyone. Loves. A. Deal.
I hate it when I rush through a "good deal" like that and miss the obvious.
Great story! Sucks that it happened though. I hope the community finds more than $80 worth of value from it, and you end up making a profit for your good deed ;)
Time will tell. If I cross my fingers, and you cross yours... well... gee.. it's a lot of fingers crossed. :) haha
To be honest though, I'm really not "expecting"... maybe 1/2 hoping it could work out that way... but honestly, my instinct tells me it probably won't. After all, who wants to read a "tire" story. grin.
What I'm more excited about is that the fact I could weave in, why a story like this makes a good steemit post... since "it's true, it's educational, it's different" and whatever else I said. :)
Well I had fun reading it :) I'm the same way though - I generally trust people until given a reason to do otherwise. It is unfortunate that there are people out there who take advantage of people like that.
Yeah, It's so hard to get a fair shake these days. I hope you don't mind me butting in here with something unrelated. About 25 day ago with a little back and forth you helped me get over my frustration with trying to get started in Steemit and today because of that just 26 days after my 1st post I have 339 followers. It's been amazing. So I knew that when I had a question @intelliguy was going to be my Go To Guy.
So the question. Today I got a reply to a post that was nearly invisible and decided to check it out. It seems it was hidden because the user had done something unacceptable. the comment appeared as such - se00 1 hour ago $0.00 Reveal comment.
I went to his blog - se00 @se00 .
Just kind of would like to know what the deal is in case I see it again. Thanks I appreciate your time.
The user is @se0 and he has a reputation of (0) which is worse than a new user who joins who gets a reputation (25)
It's because of his short comments. He's obviously a bot running around trying to comment and try and get paid for his comment on blog posts. Someone has created a bot to follow him, and vote him down until oblivion. So now when this bot writes a post, it's hidden.
To figure this out, all you had to do was go to the @se0 blog, click "comments" and look at the crappy comments he makes everywhere. It's a joke.
Thanks a lot! So I will just ignore anything hidden comments I see and leave it to the experts. Until next time. Thanks!
need to look before you buy
I did look. I just didn't know what I was really suppose to look at... until now. :)